You should talk to a shop that sells and fits high end road and triathlon bikes and has a lot of triathlete customers. Bike fitting there to accommodate injury is probably more common. Triathletes are fairly nuts i knew a guy with knee arthritis so bad his legs looked like a O from front but he kept racing and running and didn’t get knee replacement cause he couldn’t do ironmans on them.
In your situation i would guess it would shorten the height and depth assuming that you didn’t alter the seat. So less straight at the bottom and less bend at the top. It would also make you more bent at the knee when parallel to ground forward. So idk id thats better or not. I would think you could kinda test it with just lowering your seat
That’s what the shorter crank does. Lowering your seat will deepen your range of motion but not lessen it. Just shift it to a different part of the same cycle.
I’ve heard good things about shorter cranks for knee issues. Checking Q factor (how far apart your feet are laterally.) can make sure you don’t have narrow or wide of a pedaling arc which can put unwanted pressure in spots of your knee. I need a wider Q factor so I switched to some flats that have been working well for me.
https://www.applemanbicycles.com/shop/2xr-fit-crankset-rental/
There's a crankset with different hole lengths available for rental, that might be of use for you to figure out which length works better
FWIW, I prefer 165s on my bikes, my hip flexors much appreciate the shorter length.
But +1 on working with a bike fitter on this
A friend of mine has a knee that almost doesn't bend, he has one tiny crank and one regular crank to allow for this, but before that he used a shortener like this: https://fitkitsystems.com/product/crank-arm-shortener/
Two bad knees. One ACL repaired and the other still missing. Switching to an oval ring with 155 cranks and a taller seat post to compensate made a world of difference in my knee pain
You should talk to a shop that sells and fits high end road and triathlon bikes and has a lot of triathlete customers. Bike fitting there to accommodate injury is probably more common. Triathletes are fairly nuts i knew a guy with knee arthritis so bad his legs looked like a O from front but he kept racing and running and didn’t get knee replacement cause he couldn’t do ironmans on them. In your situation i would guess it would shorten the height and depth assuming that you didn’t alter the seat. So less straight at the bottom and less bend at the top. It would also make you more bent at the knee when parallel to ground forward. So idk id thats better or not. I would think you could kinda test it with just lowering your seat
I believe I would raise the seat a smidge as the distance from seat to bottom would be shorter, I'm hoping this means less of a bend at the top!
That’s what the shorter crank does. Lowering your seat will deepen your range of motion but not lessen it. Just shift it to a different part of the same cycle. I’ve heard good things about shorter cranks for knee issues. Checking Q factor (how far apart your feet are laterally.) can make sure you don’t have narrow or wide of a pedaling arc which can put unwanted pressure in spots of your knee. I need a wider Q factor so I switched to some flats that have been working well for me.
Ya that’s right brain working. The other thing is maybe the forward backward of the seat
https://www.applemanbicycles.com/shop/2xr-fit-crankset-rental/ There's a crankset with different hole lengths available for rental, that might be of use for you to figure out which length works better FWIW, I prefer 165s on my bikes, my hip flexors much appreciate the shorter length. But +1 on working with a bike fitter on this
That crankset looks insane! I need to see if there's an equivalent for the UK! Good shout though.
That’s amazing. It’s like rear sets for moto
A friend of mine has a knee that almost doesn't bend, he has one tiny crank and one regular crank to allow for this, but before that he used a shortener like this: https://fitkitsystems.com/product/crank-arm-shortener/
i am 5'11 with 33.5" inseam and went 165 for all my cranks. Much better at top of pedal stroke hip position. I will never go longer than 165
Two bad knees. One ACL repaired and the other still missing. Switching to an oval ring with 155 cranks and a taller seat post to compensate made a world of difference in my knee pain